


The Angel of Mercy

by Katsala



Series: “cripple the bitch” [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Despite her personal opinions on herself she really does just have dependent personality disorder, F/F, For Want of a Nail, Mentally Ill Character, Serial Killer Killer, Specifically Harleen, Why Don’t You Just Shoot Them?- The Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 14:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala
Summary: Mercy for whom?Dr. Harleen Quinzel meets a woman named the Oracle. Her life changes, and a lot of other lives end, but hey, that’s just Gotham for you.





	The Angel of Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> Edited as of 2/9/20 for typos and continuity.

“The population of Gotham City is approximately 10 million.” The woman in the wheelchair is parked by a bench. She has a book open in her lap- from the looks of it, a Harlequin romance. Her red hair is braided around her head like a crown and she wears heavy purple makeup on her lips and around her eyes, evoking a look of bruises. “Just so you know. I won’t kill you if you decide to leave. You’ll never see me again anyway.” There’s something of a dead quality in her voice, Harleen thinks, as if she’s talking to a complex AI instead of a person. Hell, maybe she is. There have been weirder things in Gotham. 

 

Harleen sits down on the bench. She pulls the crumpled-up note from her purse and smooths it over her lap. “Is it true?” she asks, working to keep her voice even. “Did you kill him?”

 

The woman turns a page in her book. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

 

Harleen feels a weight lift off her heart. She also feels as if she about to vomit. “Thank you,” she says. The woman says nothing, and Harleen continues, unable to stand the silence, “He was a monster. No matter how many times he got locked up, he was never going to change. He didn’t want to change. Working with him… it was terrible. Towards the end I wasn’t even sure if he was human. If he’d ever been human.”

 

“Is that how he convinced you to help him? Breaking him out, covering for him? Did you do it because you were scared?”

 

“No.” Harleen’s hands twist, crunching up the paper again. “I did it because… I don’t know. Because he was there. He understood me. When I helped him it felt like I had a purpose. Like a mattered in some way to someone.” She shrugs, blinking away tears. “I’m a psychiatrist. I know when something isn’t right in someone’s head. I haven’t been right in a very long time.” 

 

The woman turns to Harleen for the first time. Her eye color shifts between blue and green as the sunlight catches her. Harleen categorizes in her in head: Beautiful. Angry. The kind of angry you get when you’ve lost something, or someone. 

 

“You’ve done a lot of bad things in his name, Dr. Quinzel. You have a lot of blood on your hands.”

 

Harleen nods, wiping her tears away and lifting her chin. “Yes. I do. But you didn’t ask me here to yell at me and you didn’t ask me here to kill me. A woman like you could’ve done that anywhere. We’re on neutral ground and you’ve given me the choice to leave. You want something from me and you want me to agree willingly. So what do you want?”

 

The woman smiles. Harleen keeps categorizing: Survivor’s Guilt? Maybe. Homicidal ideation? Oh, definitely. Harleen might be a disaster but she knows she’s a genius. She knows people, but better than that she knows monsters. “I’m giving you the chance to make up for it,” the woman says. She smiles. “You’re a psychiatrist, Dr. Quinzel. I assume you’ve heard of the concept of an Angel of Mercy?”

 

* * *

 

It’s only the worst, of course. Only the truly incurable. 

 

They go in alphabetical order. It suits both their sensibilities, the doctor and the computer. Abattoir is first in line. Harleen, aided by a wink and a flirt at the kitchen staff, manages to sneak Batrachotoxin into the serial killer’s salad. Apparently the poison comes from certain tropical bugs and frogs; Harleen doesn’t ask how Oracle even got the stuff. 

 

Clayface is just as easy. The hospital downplays it as a side-effect of his powers- too much shapeshifting causing strain on his heart. They don’t even autopsy him. 

 

James Gordon Jr. is next. It’s the only time Harleen ever sees Oracle cry. 

 

Killer Croc and Killer Moth get taken out at the same time; it sounded right on the tongue. 

 

Batman starts poking around, then. Oracle assures Harleen that she’s handling him, but Harleen still feels eyes on the back of her neck for weeks. 

 

Mad Hatter, reportedly, was overjoyed when he was poisoned. He’d wanted to be included in the party. 

 

They have a disagreement over killing Poison Ivy. Harleen winds up having a panic attack for the first time since the Joker disappeared. She’s convinced Oracle is going to abandon her and hurt Pamela and then Harleen will be truly alone again, just like she’d been when the Joker got his hooks into her, alone and helpless and worthless-

 

Instead, Oracle takes her out for ice cream. They spend the entire time debating whether or not shorts count as pants and if lizards can be cute. They do not kill Ivy. 

 

Riddler dies without a clue. Scarecrow dies scared, the poison force-fed to him by unwitting guards trying to break a hunger strike. Two-Face is the last target by unanimous agreement. 

 

Two-Face is the straw that breaks both the camel’s back the media silence. Arkham is investigated for negligence, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and a load of other legal words Harleen doesn’t care about. The Asylum is shut down, its remaining inmates shipped off to other hospitals that will hopefully not serve as revolving doors. Harleen quits before she’s fired. She’s still trying to find a job at a local practice when Pamela finds her. 

 

Oracle, smiling genuinely this time, gives Harleen a phone number for emergencies only, a bag with five thousand dollars in it, and two one-way plane tickets to Brazil. Harleen hugs her goodbye, buys an English-to-Portuguese dictionary, and holds Pamela’s hand the entire plane ride while listening to her talk about the rainforest. 

 

Not a bad end for a couple of monsters, Harleen muses. She can only hope it works out for her lovely monster back in Gotham. 


End file.
